Children’s Evolved Learning Abilities and Their Implications for Education

Abstract

In this article, I examine children's evolved learning mechanisms that make humans the most educable of animals. These include (1) skeletal perceptual and cognitive mechanisms that get fleshed out over the course of development, mainly through play; (2) a high level of plasticity that is greatest early in life but that persists into adulthood; (3) remarkable social-learning capabilities; and (4) dispositions toward exploration and play. I next examine some evolutionary mismatches-conflicts between psychological mechanisms evolved in ancient environments and their utility in modern ones-specifically with respect to modern educational systems. I then suggest some ways educators can take advantage of children's evolved learning abilities to minimize the effects of evolutionary mismatches, including (1) following developmentally appropriate practices (which are also evolutionarily appropriate practices), (2) increasing opportunities for physical activities, (3) increasing opportunities to learn through play, and (4) taking advantage of stress-adapted children's "hidden talents." I argue that evolutionary theory informs teachers and parents about how children evolved to learn and can result in moreenlightened teaching methods that will result in a more enjoyable and successful learning experiences for children.

Leveraging Play for Learning and Development: Incorporating Cultural‐Evolutionary Insights into Early Educational Practices

“…These core abilities in social learning provide the basis for more elaborate observational learning (Rogoff, Paradise, Arauz, Correa-Chávez, & Angelillo, 2003;Tomasello, 1999) and later, it enhances learning through participation in cultural activities, apprenticeship, and forms of hands-on cultural learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991;Rogoff, 1990). This provides grounds for learning in a "bottom-up" manner, where children can progressively participate in cultural activities (Lancy, 2015) and learn from the peer potentials of age-mixed groups (Bjorklund, 2022). An important feature of apprenticeship and social learning based on close interaction and perceptibility to social cues (Csibra & Gergely, 2009)-instruction-thus arises through hands-on cultural activity.…”

“…Genes and environments bi‐directionally influence developmental sequences, learning, and behavior (Gottlieb, 2000; Laland, Sterelny, & Odling‐Smee, 2011). This view has shifted the focus on human nature and learning away from simple concepts of strict nativism and empiricism to a view that, with increasing detail, can describe the interaction of the biological and social‐cultural system as expressed in ontogeny (Bjorklund, 2022). The nature of learning in childhood is not fixed but comes with biases for learning that will be synthesized in this study.…”

“…Although human childhood is “costly,” in evolutionary terms, this period of immaturity provides extensive flexibility for humans (Bjorklund & Pellegrini, 2002), a period where skills, tools, and behaviors can be tested, often through playful engagement (Gopnik, 2020). Childhood is thus a critical stage in our life history, characterized by plasticity and sensitivity to our physical, cultural, and social environments (Bjorklund, 2007; Bjorklund, 2022; Gopnik, Frankenhuis, & Tomasello, 2020). This emphasizes the role of development and learning in the human species (Barrett, 2015) and leads to the question of learning environments and how we best learn at different stages of ontogeny.…”

“…Here, we look at three fundamental modes of engagement— exploration , play , and social learning —believed to be essential for children during evolution and to form a set of biases for learning in childhood that are leveraged by biases for learning in certain domains such as sociality, folk biology, and physics (Geary, 2005). These domains are “fleshed out” (Bjorklund, 2022) through the modes of engagement highlighted here and can be used to improve childhood education.…”

“…Importantly, both ways can be educationally utilized. Notably, however, learning is less structured than in formal classrooms, and any instructional activity is performed in the context of an activity through direct face‐to‐face dyadic or triadic interactions with objects during activities that use fundamental biases for learning (Bjorklund, 2022; Geary, 2005). The critical roles of exploration and play also promote an educational curriculum that values innovation (Gray, 2018), building on the exploratory and playful period of childhood and utilizing these in the educational process (Liquin & Gopnik, 2022; Schulz & Bonawitz, 2007).…”